“Ay, four-legged ’un, with a head and tail, having a nap in the sunshine. Why, it’s one o’ them eft things as we used to ketch with a worm in the ponds when we was boys.”
“Get out! You go and play tricks with some ’un else, matey,” said Wriggs, contemptuously. “Think I don’t know no better than that?”
“You are a clever one, Billy, and no mistake,” growled Smith. “I never did see a chap more ready not to believe the truth. If you hadn’t been born a Christian, mate, nobody wouldn’t never have converted you, and you’d ha’ been a regular heathen savage all your days.”
“Go it, matey! Much more on it? Let’s have it all while you’re about it.”
“You shall, Billy, because a good talking to’ll do you good, and knock some o’ the wanity out of you. You see, you don’t know everything.”
“And you do, eh, Tommy?”
“Nay, not quite,” said Smith, giving his head a roll; “but I do know as that’s one o’ the same sort o’ things as I used to see lying in the mud as I was once going up to Calcutta. That’s a halligator, matey, on’y some folks calls the big uns crockydiles, and the niggers out there muggers, ’cause they’ve got such ugly mugs.”
“What! do you mean to tell me as that log o’ wood with the rough bark on it’s alive?”
“Yes, all alive O!”
“Get out,” cried Wriggs, scrutinising the brute searchingly as it lay about fifty yards away. “That there’s a trunk of a tree with all the branches rubbed off. Well, I never did!”